are discs the future for road bikes?

I’m looking for my first road bike and in the model I have listed below you can have discs in the cheapest and then discs at £4500 model. The LBS said they will eventually end up on all models.
Not so sure myself. Money is no object up to £2500 but struggling to pick the right bike. http://www.specializedconceptstore.co.uk/roubaix-sl4-disc/28011/14roubaix

yes/no/maybe
depends what you are doing, if you want to hedge your bets got something with a rear disc mount.

As with all these things what do you plan to do with your new bike?

Definitely, but too early. Think I’ll wait a couple of years.

Commute and Sunday morning 6am blast before the old coffin dogers come out in there bumper cars 🙂

Didn’t you say that a couple of years ago too LardLover?

They’ve been hinted at a few times over the years, tried but never really taken off. Maybe one day but certainly not soon and does it matted of you buy one now with or without anyway?

If you think back to the back to the phasing in of discs on mountainbikes. Some early systems were very heavy and not particularly reliable and it took a bit of evolution to improve matters. Road bikes with STI type combined brake/ gear levers and weight weeny wheels will need similar evolution if both those aspects are to improve to satisfy market tastes. Brake fluid reservoirs inside hoods and thin walled disc only rims are just emerging now. I won’t be an early adopter.

Disc rims aren’t much lighter.

I wonder if disc brakes will get light enough for zzsummer use road bikes.

in a word yes*.

this is why

Up till now no one has actually made a disc brake lever worth using for most people. That Shimano are releasing a mechanical lever changes everything.

Granted £470 isn’t cheap, but that is list price and it will be available cheaper elsewhere, and it is the brakes and levers.

*Whether anyone needs discs is a meh issue, manufacturers will supply them, buyers will buy them, 650b is all you need to know.

I hope so, I do wonder if they’re going to keep the 135mm back end that we’re currently seeing though. Doubtful if for no other reason than the industry loves a new standard. Interested to see what the UCI tech dude comes up with ref service for big races, at the minute it’s a wait and see but I reckon the industry will be pushing it in a 650b stylee next year.

My rule of thumb is wait til Shimano have released a new tech on 105/LX so the price is down and there’s been 2/3 years of real world testing.

Who mentioned 650b?

Disc rims aren’t much lighter.

There are other advantages with disc rims, though. The rim can be built purely for strength as a wheel, not as a braking surface. Add in the fact that a disc wheel can be a bit out of true and still work far better than an equivalent caliper wheel, as well as the improvement in braking and pad duration and I would say that discs really are the future.

As before, though it’s odd not to be seeing mid range bikes coming ‘disc ready’ as happened in the early days of discs on MTB. Haven’t seen any caliper equipped bikes with future proof disc mounts.

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the UCI introduce minimum weights for bikes?

If this is the case, would it not be feasible that the bikes can dip below this minimum weight & make up the difference with disc brakes to make it weight legal again?

These kinds of problems are always annoying because you are spending a lot of lot money and you want to your bike to be future proof. However, in my experience I have found that in spite of my best intentions I have always been glad of an excuse to buy a new bike!!

If this is the case, would it not be feasible that the bikes can dip below this minimum weight & make up the difference with disc brakes to make it weight legal again?

That’s pretty irrelevant as discs aren’t UCI legal in road races.

Yes, even Bontrager thinks they are http://road.cc/content/news/114388-road-discs-are-future-says-bontrager

mrmo – Member
*Whether anyone needs discs is a meh issue, manufacturers will supply them, buyers will buy them,

It’s not the same as MTB though – pro peleton acceptance of new technology is required, its probably more important than marketing.

CaptainFlashheart – Member
Disc rims aren’t much lighter.
There are other advantages with disc rims, though. The rim can be built purely for strength as a wheel, not as a braking surface

If that were the case then they could and would be made lighter.

As before, though it’s odd not to be seeing mid range bikes coming ‘disc ready’ as happened in the early days of discs on MTB

Not odd at all – they are just too far away, if they will actually dominate.

Probably in a year or two when road bike sales have slowed… oh look..
We’ve invented some awesome balls disc brakes to make your current bike obsolete. Buy the new one and throw your old one in the skip.

Discs are one bit of modern bike tech I support wholeheartedly.

Bring it on, the sooner and cheaper the better.

Drac – Moderator

Didn’t you say that a couple of years ago too LardLover?

😆

Of course they are thr future. Only stuffy, stuck in thepast gtumbling old men who love club politics cling to ‘tradition’.

Soon we’ll have decent stopping power on road bikes long after discs came to off road.

How many injuries and deaths would be averted if it came sooner? Maybe indirectly but a contributing factor I bet. I had personal experience of brake block/rim failure at 16. I ended up over shooting a giveway.

I’m sure they’ll creep in eventually, but personally they look awful. A decent set of calipers with good swiss pads do the job and easily serviceable. I just cant see how a set of discs are going to kill the speed (and when I say this I mean stop you on tarmac to tyre contact) when hooning down a hill at 45mph+ on 23mm tyres!

Funny how people seem to have managed discs off road for years with a much less grippy surface.

Bit of a strange idea, but perhaps, just perhaps, human beings can learn and adapt?

Personally no because I live in a dry, flat area of the country. If I lived somewhere hilly and wet then yes. The real benefits will come when wheels can be designed completely without consideration of rim brakes.

Discs pose some difficulties for pros : Extra weight, poor aerodynamics, spinning blades during crashes, neutral mechanical support, extra spokes, sharp braking in pelotons… I’ve just replaced my Ti disc road bike with a Tarmac SL4 and Hed Jets and am much happier.

Cant see the point on a road bike, no need. Lack of brakes have never slowed me down. In the wet lack of grip is the problem its easy enough to drag the brakes a little to dry the rims. Anyone who thinks road brakes are not powerful enough is either doing it wrong or have poorly set up brakes.

More powerful brakes are always better, it’s a joke to say otherwise.

However this benefit is not significant enough to outweigh the current disadvantages (for most) on lightweight/race road bikes.

Disc brakes make sense for a commute work horse or extended rough terrain but for a sports fitness road bike I don’t see the benefit.

Imagine Paris Roubaix with everyone on discs. Hundreds of team mechanics fiddling with pad alignment at the roadside as the peloton disappears into a dust cloud.

I haven’t really considered them, but would you have to use heavier gauge spokes to cope with the torsion under heavy braking?

bob_summers – Member
I haven’t really considered them, but would you have to use heavier gauge spokes to cope with the torsion under heavy braking?

No, no need.

I’ll take your word for it then 😉

Seriously though, my front wheel (400g) uses cxray spokes, all 20 of them. I can’t see how I could add a disc hub and not beef up the spokage.

rumbledethumps – Member 
I’m sure they’ll creep in eventually, but personally they look awful. A decent set of calipers with good swiss pads do the job and easily serviceable.

Well that pretty much sums up my view too.

400gm front wheel? I guess that might need to be beefier.

I use revolutions on my mtb front wheel. 9 years old and no issues, though there are 32 of them.

I’d consider discs on my winter bike but I can lock up my wheels with two fingers on the summer bike so I don’t see any point in adding extra faff or complication to my summer bike.

cynic-al, disc brakes will happen. As soon as Shimano, Sram and Campagnolo release brakes, give it a year for the UCI to do there “tests” and work out how to handle neutral service they will be rolled out, does also matter what the plan is with the minimum weight though. Abolish it bikes can get a lot lighter, keep it and you can have discs within the current limit.

This isn’t about what is better or what is needed, this is about money, planned obsolesce, the next greatest thing. As you say they don’t bring many advantages to pro level racing, as long as they don’t bring disadvantages, they will appear.

I can see advantages to discs, but they aren’t a huge game changer for me, but that isn’t relevant. They will add about a pound to the weight of bikes which for 99% of users is sod all. They will allow wheel manufacturers a few more options, but it won’t change much, a 50mm deep rim is still 50mm deep with or without a brake track.

I already run (hydro) discs on all my bikes (road and mtb).

Net gain in weight for the carbon roadie when going to discs was about 550g, which is acceptable to me. I’d never go back to rim brakes. It’s not even close.

I see your point mrmo, I guess manufacturers can force peleton acceptance. It’s not like the old days where genuine game-cahngers like clipless pedals took a while to be acepted.

And I’d say 1lb on your bike is a huge amount to most 15 stone weekend warriors 😛

The big disadvantage in pro tour is surely wheel changes. It’d be a brave team to go over to discs with everyone else on calipers. The peloton has largely accepted electronic shifting too, but riders like Cancellara refuse to use it.

Maybe I’m overestimating how much more time it takes to change, but when you see the fuss kicked up about retention tabs on the forks (and ALL teams had to go with those, so same disadvantage for everyone)…

They are the future.

But that gives you the opportunity to pick up a really nice ‘obsolete’ rim braked road bike super-cheap in the sales this year or (probably) next.

NO THEY’RE NOT THEY ARE UGLY AND ONLY INTRODUCED TO MAKE RICH FRED’S BUY NEW BIKES FOR THEIR NEXT SPORTIVE.